Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Bastille Day Q & A - Richard Madden

Bastille Day is about to hit the cinemas in NZ so we have secured some chats with the stars... Here's Richard Madden

Rising
star Richard Madden (Game of Thrones,
Cinderella) returns to the big screen
in James Watkins’ exciting action-adventure Bastille
Day. Set in Paris,
Madden plays Michael Mason, a young pickpocket in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Forced to join up with ruthless CIA agent Sean Briar (Idris Elba), this
unlikely pair must stop a terrorist group threatening national security.

QUESTION: What drew you
to Bastille Day?

RICHARD
MADDEN: James Watkins drew me in. Working with Idris drew me in. The story drew
me and, selfishly, the character drew me in. I was just very interested in this
character that seemed to not have any morals or give a shit about anybody else
or his actions. And that was an interesting human character study, to get into
the head of somebody who doesn’t care. It’s not that he doesn’t have anything
to lose. He has this huge drive and talent and ability – just not a direction
to put it in. I was excited about that. And to work with Idris on these two characters
that could not be more different and to see what relationship would come out of
that…I had no idea when we started what would come of it, and that was very
exciting finding that.

QUESTION: How was Idris
to work with?

RICHARD
MADDEN: He’s brilliant. He’s such an enthusiastic, professional, empowering
actor. He’s bit of a legend, and he’s someone who empowers you to play and
improvise and find a safe creative space to do that. It’s wonderful. I had a
great time every day with him and he’s a collaborator. We helped each other to
make our accents better, to find the best in every scene, to improvise as much
as possible, and find the truth. Every day we’d talk plot points and script
changes. He’s a real professional, top of the pile actor.

QUESTION: How was your
off-camera relationship?

RICHARD
MADDEN: I’ve got a huge respect for Idris and did have before we’d met. I
learnt a lot working with him. I’m reluctant to say that because I don’t want
to give him any compliments! But I think that’s very much like the characters;
you have a young man who is actually learning a lot from this man. We did lot
of improvising before, during and after the takes; some of that made it into
the film, which is great, but more importantly, a lot of the energy in these
scenes carries with it what we were improvising before and after the scenes.

QUESTION: Where do you
see your character at the start of the film? What journey does he go through?

RICHARD
MADDEN: I think at the start, funnily enough, he’s at the end of where he’s got
to in his life at this point. He’s robbing people, he’s got a load of money but
he doesn’t have anything to spend it on or know what he’s going to do with it. So
it’s funny – it’s almost like this needed to happen in order to move into the
next stage of his life. That life had to get burned and crashed, and I think
he’s pretty damn lonely at the start. You get a little hint of that when he
sees the couple in the street. But he’s got his walls up and he’s had to have
his walls up.

QUESTION: What kind of
a director was James?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Much like myself and Idris, he was constantly mining. James was the
real reason why I first wanted to do the film. Just how he spoke about it and
how he talked about it, and how he wanted to make this film…he’s just so
enthusiastic. Every day, there’s probably more footage of me and Idris
improvising before and after takes than there is actually footage of the takes!
Hopefully there will be some nice DVD extras in there! But he encouraged that
and he let us do it. Some of it got into the film but it was more to let our
relationship grow and our chemistry. And that’s really refreshing. As a
director, he had a bold choice to make – casting very different actors, hoping
they would get on, hoping it would be great chemistry, and letting them play on
the day and seeing where that took the film, and how that would affect the
picture in the end. It’s really good that he embraced that.

QUESTION: Did you pick
up any pickpocket tips?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Yeah, I learned how to do it. It was great. All the things I do were
real, and we had to slow them down so we could read them on camera. It’s less
to do with the actual stealing of things and more to do with the confidence
where you look someone in the eye as you’re robbing them. It’s a really bold
thing to do and quite nerve-wracking. You only get one shot at it. I practiced
a lot and got quite good at it. Also, we choreographed everything. But I really
enjoyed it.

QUESTION: Did you try
it on Idris?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Oh, yeah, I would try wee bits on him, and I got him as well. I
wouldn’t say it front of him because he’ll go mental. He’ll think I’ve nicked
his iPhone; I’ve done things like that. He’s an easy mark!

QUESTION: Was it
strange both of you playing Americans in Paris?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Yeah, it is strange. We’re two British actors living in Paris, working there, so
there are parallels between all of those things. The accent changes everything;
so we worked on that a lot, to try and make it as realistic as possible and
correct each other when needed.

QUESTION: Talk about
the opening sequence. It’s pretty eye-opening, as the girl arrives naked to
distract onlookers while you pick pockets. Was it faked?

RICHARD
MADDEN: No, no, that was real. That was her. Not only was it her, but there
were more people than you see on screen. There are the people that are in the
scene and then the people watching off-camera. And she’s really well lit and we
did it over and over and over again for a whole evening. So good god – she’s a
good actress! And she did it and she did it well.

QUESTION: That’s quite
an entrance she makes, right?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Too right. If that was the opening to my show-reel, I think people
would watch the next scene!

QUESTION: Did doing the
role make you more aware of being in crowded places?

RICHARD MADDEN: Absolutely. Luckily, none of what I was doing in that opening
section was the fancy stuff. A lot of these guys work in pairs or threes. It’s
not this dealing of it, it’s the getting rid of it quick enough. People get
caught. And I’ve seen it in cities like Rome and
Paris – you see
the chalk on the back. That’s an easy mark! It’s mad. One will come in, very
direct and in your face. Another will kneel behind you and the other will be at
the side, and it’s a whole distraction. You don’t know who’s got it, you don’t
know what’s happened, and then they drop it off with another guy that’s got a
bag of everything. These guys are really smart.

QUESTION: What was the
most dangerous stunt on you did on the film?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Well James wanted us to do everything and we did everything…I was up on
all the rooftops. There was one point when I slide down and land on a ledge and
the drop from the ledge was only six foot to a crash mat, but from the very
top, when you start sliding, that’s twenty foot and that’s quite dangerous. I
did snap my ankle one day. We rehearsed with this big obstacle course, and I
was running off a platform, jumping off a roof and sliding down it…and I was over-keen.
I over-jumped the roof, so rather than landing on the roof and sliding down it,
I cleared the roof and landed on my ankle and it snapped to the side. All my
weight went on it, and I was like, ‘Ah, that was really sore.’ And I looked at
it, and said, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s just really sore.’ And then fifteen
seconds later, I looked down and my ankle had turned into a football and they
said, ‘We need to get you to the hospital now.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to get
fired!’ Luckily, I didn’t get fired and it went down and it wasn’t broken.

QUESTION: Who was
better at the obstacle course? You or Idris?

RICHARD MADDEN: Different strengths, different strengths. He’s strong. He’s
slimmed down now, not as big as he was then, but when we had to crawl through
tunnels and stuff, I was a bit better at that because my shoulders aren’t as
broad and I can get through it quicker. But when it comes to taking people
down, he wins every day.

QUESTION: James Watkins
said the film is influenced by many movies from the past. Were some of these
films you knew?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Yeah…The Third Man, I loved
that film. That was one of the films I loved anyway, and then James gave me a
bunch of films to watch. So he supped in a lot of different influences. I had
to take that in, and then this is what I was most excited by, this relationship
with me and Idris, I had not read that relationship before in a film –
something that had the potential to be this really interesting dual, very
unconventional. I just think there was something unique in this. And then I was
like, ‘What tone is this film going to have?’ I thought, ‘James is going to
have to deal with that in the edit because we need to bring out the best in
what we can do here and then let him piece it together later.’

QUESTION: Which actors
did you look up to when you were younger?

RICHARD MADDEN: There were
lots of actors I looked up to. I think that’s quite a new thing, of being a kid
and wanting to follow that. I didn’t know anything about acting, I didn’t know
anything about drama. I just went into this youth theatre world where it was
really fun to play. I’ve never had the ‘I want to have the career of, I want to
be like...’ I’ve always just been, ‘This is what I’m doing.’

QUESTION:
What’s your favourite movie of all time?

RICHARD MADDEN: JurassicPark
is still one of my favourite movies of all time. I love dinosaurs and I was a
big sci-fi geek when I was younger, and still am. I’d love to be in a bit of
sci-fi one day. I’d love to have a nice laser gun on a space ship! It’s not my
dream project but it’s up there, and then if you throw in some dinosaurs then
we’re really cooking!

QUESTION: How important
was Game of Thrones to your career?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Very. I wouldn’t be talking to you now if it wasn’t for Game of Thrones. It was such a great
five minutes of my life, from pilot until finishing it, and also it set me up,
so I can come and be doing films like this and lots of other films. It taught
me a lot and I cut my teeth on camera acting, and how to do that.

QUESTION: Do you still watch the show?

RICHARD
MADDEN: Absolutely. A lot of my best friends are still in the show, so I get
really excited to watch it again. I loved it when I was in it. You’d read the
scripts, and then you’d stop reading the other scenes, and do your own stuff,
and then you’d get surprised by watching it. It’s such a big world to watch – I
love it. The only challenge is trying to get the other actors not to tell you
what they were filming yesterday. So you don’t get anything spoiled for you!

QUESTION: Would you
like to work in your native Scotland?

RICHARD
MADDEN: I’d love to do some theatre up in Scotland again because that’s where
I started. I did a lot of stuff up there. I’d love to make a picture up there.
And there’s been little things bubbling over different years and hopefully that
will happen. I think Scotland’s
film industry is going to keep improving over the coming years and I’d like to
be a part of it.